Three Republican Senate leaders took a pen to the pages of a national media outlet to tell their constituents: Don’t worry, we won’t let you down – we have a plan to weaken and maybe even dismantle Obamacare.
“Republicans have a plan to create a bridge away from Obamacare,” wrote Sen. Orin Hatch, along with fellow senators Lamar Alexander and John Barrasso, in an op-ed for The Washington Post.
Their strategy?
First, to give people money to help them “keep the coverage they picked for a transitional period,” they wrote, citing King v. Burwell, a lawsuit that claims that health care recipients in 37 states have been illegally receiving Obamacare subsidies. The Supreme Court is due to hear oral arguments in the case on Wednesday. If justices rule that the subsidies violate law, up to six million Americans could lose their subsidies.
“It would be unfair to allow families to lose their coverage, particularly in the middle of the year,” they wrote. “Most of these people have gone through the wringer to get this insurance.”
And then step two: Work with the governors of those 37 states to get them the “freedom and flexibility” they need to shift away from Obamacare and toward some sort of replacement health care system, they said.
They wrote: “People who live in states that have state exchanges will continue to be subject to Obamacare’s costly mandates and rules, along with the subsidies. But their states could also have the benefit of our solution. Every state would have the ability to create better markets suited to the needs of their citizens.”
The senators also held out hope for a near-dismantling of Obamacare, if justices did determine, in King V. Burwell, that the subsidies were illegal.
“Such a ruling would also give Congress an opportunity – to stop Obamacare’s damage and create a pathway to reforms that move our health-care system in the direction of freedom, choice and lower costs,” they wrote.
Republicans have been promising to repeal or defund Obamacare for some time. One attempt, in December, included a consortium of 25 Republicans asking the Supreme Court to consider the legal aspects of a Medicare advisory board established by Obamacare that critics assail as a “death panel,” The Hill reported. Another, in early February, saw Republicans in the House once again launching an outright legislative repeal of the plan, saying through Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy that medical decisions “should be made by patients and their doctors, not by Washington,” Fox News reported.
